marianne Heater elementary lesson Planning

8 tips to get You off to a great start

it’s fall already. Here you are back at work ready to start making beautiful music with your students. But before the first note fills the air there is some basic planning that needs to take place. Here are a few ground rules to help you to relax and have fun once the busy year begins.

1. lesson plan books: music teachers have special needs when it comes to laying out a lesson plan book. unless you have found one that you love, take the time to create a template that works for you. send it off to your print shop and have them tape or spiral bind it and keep it on file so you can have a new one printed up each year. it has to have enough periods in the day to accommodate a teacher that sees 10 plus classes. make room for extracurricular activities, after school choir, extra band rehearsal, etc. make a page for a seating chart. include as many as you need for the amount of classes you have.

2. take the time to fill in the dates for the entire school year. mark all of the holidays and time off. this is the best way to outline the year. the holidays are fixed and you want to make sure you don’t schedule a concert right after spring break when your students return and don’t remember what they rehearsed. if possible find out the dates of your schools carnival, jog-a-thon or special event that would not welcome music programs during the same week.

3. schedule all programs for the year. this means taking the time to meet with grade level teams. c ontact your feeder middle school band and choir directors so that you don’t have sibling scheduling conflicts when it comes to concert time. make sure you know when your school has its dibels and oaKs testing. approaching staff members with concern for their scheduling needs will ensure that no one will be surprised by you pulling their students out of class for a rehearsal. most teachers like to know well in advance when your music program is going to be. students get excited about programs and a well organized teacher will plan that week of the program accordingly.

4. Plan the week before the program carefully. elementary music teachers often continue teaching core curriculum to four or five other grade levels while preparing for a concert with a specific group. if you are meeting with a grade level for rehearsal and giving 110 percent with sound checks, costuming, hauling instruments etc; you will love yourself for planning lessons with the other grade levels that are automatic for you. this could be written lesson in workbooks, musical puzzles, games or a variety of projects that run themselves. there are plenty of well planned visual documentaries or movies about the life of famous musicians. this can be a valuable time to use those resources wisely. remember to schedule in some down time so you can focus on the task of putting on a production.

5. think about what you want each grade level to know by the end of the year. create timelines in your lesson plan book with realistic goals for each grade level. if you have selected nine songs that teach nine different skills or standards per trimester to your third graders you can include those in your plans as accountability goals. each song can address many standards but you may wish to focus on one or two with each lesson. there are nine content standards. simply put they are: sing, play, improvise, compose, notate, analyze, evaluate, correlate and understanding historical and cultural perspectives.

6. the national standards give us accountability. menc puts out a publication entitled ‘national standards for arts education; What every Young american should Know and Be able to do in the arts”. (rowman & littlefield Publishers) this book provides a framework for state and local decision making in regard to the nine content standards. teacher observation summaries require you to identify the standards that you address in your lessons. as you plan it is prudent to notate next to the lesson or unit the standard that you are addressing. When the time comes to fill in your observation form for your principal or administrator it will be easy to summarize your areas of strength and the areas that need refinement. the standards are a guideline not a lesson plan. You know what works for the students that you have. motivation is the key. Keep your lessons interesting.

7. set the tone for the year with clear concise procedures for your students. use the first week to talk about how things are done in your room. Post your rules and phrase them in a positive way. e xplain the way you want things put away at the end of a session. students should understand where instruments go, how to carefully put them away, appropriate noise level for the task, line up procedures and the time it should take to get this done. give students an overview of the year. Your students will appreciate this. let them know where you are going with your lessons and what you expect them to learn in the nine months that you are together. if you do theory lessons on the first day of the week then explain that you will be doing hands on practice the other days of the week. students like this sense of routine and will oblige you willingly. take the time to do this and you will only have to remind them gently when things get out of kilter.

8. finally, make closure with your lessons, programs and the end of the year. make it your goal to finish projects and let your students know that the goal is to learn all 25 songs in the practice book or whatever that goal may be. make your goals realistic and give yourself enough time to complete the lesson thoroughly. With each accomplishment make sure you celebrate or acknowledge this with your students. Keep a checklist that students can see. letting your students know that they have accomplished the requirements for a year in your classroom is a great way to send them off for summer vacation and a great way to welcome them back in the fall!